Plasterer&#39;s trowel.



WITNESSES MFQW- R. W. LINVILLE.

. PLASTERERS TROWBL.

APPLICATION FILED JULY 23,1912.

Patented June 3, 1913.

INVENTOR ATTORNEY UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

ROBERT W. LINVILLE, OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, ASSIGNOR, BY DIRECT AND MESNE ASSIGNMENTS, 0F ONE-FOURTH TO JOSEPH GRAEF AND ONE-FOURTH TO MARY GRAEF, BO'II-I OF SAN-FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.

PLASTERERS TROWEL.

Specification of Letters latent.

Patented J une 3, 1913.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, ROBERT \Vnrrn LIN- VILL'E, a citizen of the United States, residing at San Francisco, in the county of San Francisco and State of California, have invented new and useful Improvements in Plasterers Trowels, of which the following is a specification.

The object of the present invention is to provide improvements in plasterers trowels, which will reduce their cost, and render them more convenient for use. These trowels comprise a thin rectangular steel blade, a wooden handle, and single-piece casting riveted to the steel blade for connecting the handle. Some of these rivets which connect the casting to the blade are immediately beneath the handle, and it is therefore not practicable to do the riveting by machinery, so that it must be done by hand, thus increasing the cost of construction. Moreover the casting is of a form which renders it comparatively expensive. lVith this construction the whole of the trowel has to be thrown away, when too much worn for further use. The only part of the trowel which undergoes wear to any appreciable extent is the blade, and the front portion of the blade wears much faster than the rear portion. The front end of the blade becomes too much worn for further use from four to seven times a year when used by a plasterer in steady work, thus entailing an average expense of, say, $10 a year in replacing the trowel.

The object of the present invention is to provide an improved construction of trowel by which, first, the original cost of the trowel will be greatly reduced, and, second, the cost of replacement will be still further reduced.

Other advantages of my invention will appear in the further description thereof.

In the accompanying drawing, Figure 1 is a perspective View of my improved trowel; Fig. 2 is a longitudinal section thereof, an alternate position of the handle being shown in dotted lines; Fig. 3 is an enlarged broken sectional view of a portion thereof.

Referring to the drawing, 1 represents the blade of the trowel, and 2 the handle thereof. Instead of securing said blade to said handle by means of a single casting, the casting 3, which extends through the handle, and has a nut 1, screwed on its end for securing the handle thereon, terminates at the lower end of the stem portion 5 of said casting.

.6 indicates a strip of metal, riveted, as shown at 7, to the blade 1, and formed, at equal distances from its ends with two thickened portions 8, in each of which is a comparatively large threaded socket 9. The stem 5 terminates at its lower end in an enlarged cylindrical threaded foot 11, which is adapted to be screwed in either of the threaded sockets 9, the other threaded socket 9 being then filled with a screw plug 12, preferably of a. different metal, as brass; In the side of said foot remote from the handle is formed a half-round hole 13, which is adapted to register with either of two half round holes 141, best seen in Fig. 3, in opposite sides of said sockets 9 on a longitudinal diameter therethrough. The completely round hole formed when the hole 13 registers with either of'the holes 1 1, is tapering, and its lower end registers with one of two pairs of holes 16 formed in the blade 1. When the foot 11 of the handle has been screwed down into the socket 9 a tapering pin 17 is then driven into the registering holes 13, 1 1 and 16. and firmly secures the handle against rotation. It will be observed that these holes 16 are necessary in order to enable the tapering pin to be driven out by a nail, punch, or similar device applied thereto from the under side of the blade 1.

My improved construction of the trowel has many advantages. The original cost is much reduced, because the strip 6 can now be riveted to the blade 1 by machinery. When the front end of the blade 1 becomes too much worn for further use, instead of having to throw the whole trowel away, the plasterer will then attach the handle to the blade by the other socket 9, so that the other end of the trowel will in turn be subjected to greater use and become worn. On this account alone the life of the trowel is doubled in length. then both ends are too much worn for further use, instead of hav ing to buy an entirely new trowel, he will merely buy a new blade, the cost of which will be about one-half that of the whole trowel, and will secure the old handle therein, and the same handle can be used for an indefinite length of time with any number of blades in succession, so that the cost to the plasterer of replacement of trowels is reduced to one-fourth the former cost, in addition to the original cost being less.

Again, it is extremely important that a workman who works all his time with the same tool in his hand should have a tool the handle of which is perfectly fitted for his hand. Then a new trowel has to be bought with a different shaped handle, either the plasterer must accustom himself to the change in the shape of the handle, or must change the handle to the shape best fitted for his hand. WVith a trowel of my construction, however, the handle will last practically a lifetime, so that it is not necessary to make any readjustment for the shape of the handle. Again it frequently happens that a plasterer is not able to conveniently use a trowel of the old construction on account of intervening objects, such as radiators. In sucli cases, with my present construction, he can readily do so, for it is only necessary to drive out the tapering pin and turn the handle a half turn and then insert the tapering pin into the registering hole formed with the other half round hole 14 and into the other hole 16, so that the handle will then extend in the posit-ion shown in dotted lines in Fig. 2. Again, a plasterer requires two metal trowels, a browning trowel and a finishing trowel, and a wooden float trowel for a sand finish. With my improved construction of trowel the same handle can be used with all of them. still more important, because it enables these three trowels, having only a single handle, to be packed in a very' small compass.

I claim A trowel comprising a blade, a longitudinal strip of metal riveted to the blade, and

having therein two threaded sockets substantially equi-distant from the ends of the blade, and a handle having a stem, the lower ROBERT \V. LINVILLE.

Witnesses F. M. VVnrGI-rr, D. B. Riel-mans.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents,

. Washington, D. G.

This fact is rendered 

